John O'Boyle/The Star-LedgerGov. James E. McGreevey in Atlantic City on Aug. 25, 2004.

Former Gov. James E. McGreevey started work for the politically connected Parsippany law firm of Weiner Lesniak on Dec. 1, but otherwise his transition from disgraced public official to private citizen has been a monthlong lesson in humility.

He has separated from his second wife, Dina Matos, and traded the elegance of Drumthwacket for a two-bedroom apartment in Rahway. Political associates don't return his calls, and all but his closest friends stay away in droves.

Even something as mundane as a midweek business dinner can reinforce all he has lost, as it did Wednesday when McGreevey crossed paths with Democratic power broker John Lynch at Ristorante da Benito in Union.

Lynch greeted his former protege tersely and then gruffly dismissed him, according to two people who were there, leaving McGreevey to dine on Dover sole at a separate table with his new bosses, Ray Lesniak and Paul Weiner.

Lesniak, like most of the former governor's friends, declined to talk about what McGreevey has done since resigning his office Nov. 15, except to confirm he started work Dec. 1.

He also declined to describe McGreevey's role at the firm or identify any clients, although it has been reported that McGreevey would be a partner, focused on developing business, recruiting clients and offering advice on government.

McGreevey has a law degree from Georgetown University, though he hasn't practiced in 20 years, since he was a prosecutor in Middlesex County.

His ties to Weiner Lesniak date to his time as mayor of Woodbridge, when for nearly the full decade the firm was the town's general legal counsel, a position that brought it hundreds of thousands of dollars a year in fees. The firm's presence in Woodbridge led to hundreds of thousands of dollars in additional payments from the Middlesex County government and the county's Joint Insurance Fund.

McGreevey did not respond to requests for an interview.

However, several of the small circle of friends and associates with whom McGreevey still keeps counsel and breaks bread offered upbeat accounts of the former governor's new life. Most asked to speak off the record or didn't want to see their names in print.

"It's a dead issue at this point," said Rahway Mayor Jim Kennedy, a close friend of McGreevey's. "He's in private life."

But others who know McGreevey say he is not living in exile; that in fact he is bearing up quite well, especially given his circumstances, taking only a couple of weeks off before jumping into his new job.

He is working out of a Spartan, state-paid transition office in Woodbridge. A secretary used the back of one of his old gubernatorial business cards to write down the new office phone number for a reporter this week.

"He seems remarkably upbeat," said George Zoffinger, president of the New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority. "He'll go through this transition where some people will kick him for a while. ... I guess that's good news for Jim Florio."

Zoffinger was Commerce commissioner when Florio, a Democrat, was ousted from the governor's office in 1993 amid a voter rebellion over his tax increases. Florio's fall from power made him a favorite target of ridicule by political pundits and radio talk show hosts for years.

Jamie Fox, the former chief of staff who McGreevey appointed to oversee the Port Authority, said the former governor has kept busy with work and personal meetings, often over dinner, and a slower pace to his life that allows him more time with his daughter.

"He's looking forward to being a little more anonymous," Fox said. "He actually seems more relaxed and excited about the next chapter in his life."

Yet others with a more distant - and more disinterested - view wonder if life can really be so sweet for a career politician who finds himself a political pariah.

"He loved retail politics. He loved campaigning. He worked all the time. He never went home. Now he's lost his wife. He's lost his mentor in John Lynch. And he's lost his friends, who turned out not to be friends but political contacts," said Alan Marcus, a lobbyist in Trenton. "How happy could the guy be?"

McGreevey has also had to face painful personal issues stemming from his revelation in his resignation speech that he is a "gay American."

A divorce appears imminent, and according to the leasing manager at his apartment, McGreevey's only visitor has been his daughter Jacqueline, who turned 3 last week.

His marital entanglement is still much in the news. It's grist for a piece in the January issue of Good Housekeeping magazine, where contributing writer Betsy Carter compares her experience with her husband's coming out of the closet to what Matos has gone through.

But at least one Democratic strategist, who advised McGreevey on how best to deal with his own coming out, sees the former governor's personal trauma as a means to returning to public life and resurrecting his political career.

Such a move would have to come farther down the road, the strategist said, and it would have to be orchestrated around McGreevey's telling of his own story, either through a book or an interview with a sympathetic television host, someone like Oprah Winfrey.

That might be tougher than it seems.

In order to reassert himself through the window of gay rights, McGreevey will have to recant his opposition to gay marriage. He could explain it as the result of political pressure he felt being a closeted gay man, a position most gay people would accept, said Steven Goldstein of New Jersey Equality.

Goldstein said that as far as he knows, McGreevey has not reached out to gay groups, nor has he heard of any of them reaching out to McGreevey.

"We're over him like yesterday's bad date," he said.

But McGreevey's friends and advisers are skeptical the former governor has much of an abiding interest in carving out a niche in the gay community.

One adviser, who asked not to be identified, suggested McGreevey's public implosion may not be as damaging as some believe, pointing out polls showed the former governor's approval rating when he left office at 43 percent.